Are battles always one sided?

[Askan Nightbringer]

Hello all,

I've been in a pbw game for a 100 turns or so (the longest I've ever played a SE game) and every battle seems to be a complete demolishment of one side with the other taking few casualties.
I don't believe there is much of a technology difference to warrant this but the 6 or so major battles I've been in have all been one sided.

Some examples of the battles have been

50 ships vs 50 ships yields one side destroyed, the other losing around 4 ships (plus they captured one for a net of 3)

30 vs 20 means no loss to the 30 and homeworld exposed for the other guy.

30 ships ambush 40, destroying all and taking no losses.

And the most recent one
35 ships, (mainly battle crusiers with PPBs and level 2 phased shields) get surprised by 101 ships, mainly cruisers (with quantom torpedoes and level 4 phased shields).
The result?
101 ships blown to smitherenes with a single battle cruiser lost on the other side and no other damage no any of the fleet.

To quote the defeated

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New estimates show that it takes approximately 100 Spoo ships to kill one People's ship.

Expense minister Mr. Big explaines this as "not exactly economical"
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Just wondering what other people's experience has been.
Does fleet/ship experience points have that much of a difference? If so ...yuk!

Askan

[ZeroAdunn]

Yes combat is very one sided. The player who is higher on the player list always has the upperhand in combat with equal ships. Combat needs to be fixed. They need to set it up so ships shoot at the same exact time. That would fix combat alot. Or change it so defenders move and fire first.

[Dragonlord]

Yes, this is a problem of sorts in SEIV...
The chance to hit is very important. I have seen many battles such as the ones you describe...in the case of 35 vs 100+ ships, did the 35 have superior sensors, training, and/or stealth/scattering armor?

[Dragonlord]

Heh, ZeroAdunn posted one minute before me
To correct you though, the player's number is ONLY a factor on wormhole battles, not in every single battle.

[Phoenix-D]

Yeah, you're wormhole defense can be made or broken on who fires first. If the defender is higher in number, your only options are to attack in overwhelming numbers, accepting massive losses, or go around.

My Bashaka wormhole defense, in one game I'm in, has wiped out entire FLEETS of dreadnaughts without so much as a shot fired in return.

Of course, I do have 30 space stations, 50 WMG-armed sats there at all times, and use it as a staging groud for my fleets, so the total number averages about 100 ships firing before the attacker even gets to blink.

Phoenix-D

[chewy027]

30 space stations on one warp point??!!!! Thats crazy man. and 50 sats to boot!! wow was that the only warp point into that system. Your opponents must have been pretty mad

[Spoo]

Regarding my poor 101 dead ships:

I had combat sensors 3.

Askan's fleet had Legendary status, while mine had no experience.

I had max tech in Quantum Torpedoes, he had max tech in PPB (but i had phased shields).

I only killed ONE ship! (I might have hit 3...)

All ships were set to break formation, optimal firing range.

So I guess it was the experience that did it. Looks like I'll be building training facilities from now on... And maxing out defense in my ratial traits... And maybe throw in religious talismans... Then I'll be invicible!

Doesn't seem balanced, does it?

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[Puke]

battles are always one sided if you plan well. for example, when planing your wormhole defense, try to plan ahead and join the game before anyone else

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[rdouglass]

That's why I always play religious tech - that Talisman can be a HUGE factor in combat....

[Stone Mill]

askan,

Battles are lopsided, in my opinion and experience, at times without any discernable reason why. Especially with high tech fleets of 20 or 30+ or higher...
In simultaneous games I've played I was baffled at how two evenly matched fleets would clash- and one side would pretty much destroy the other while taking hardly any damage! The expectation would be that one side would win (because of and edge in technology or experience)... but in winning against that evenly matched opponent, the victor should take at least 50% losses. This never happens. It's always a butt-kicking!
After much investigation in trying to make sense of this, I asked my opponent, (who eventually won the upper hand in most of these battles) what it could be... And he said he tweaked the fleet orders much more. And I think there is much credence to this, I have watched combat replays with shock as many of my baseships and dreadnaughts broke formation at random and went off on their own while the bulk of my fleet whimsically engaged or chose not to engage.
It seems with simultaneous combat, unless you tweak your formation, fleet orders, and ship orders, you will be subjected to "Crazy Ivan" AI commanding your fleet. It is quite laughable to watch what the AI does with your ships when it goes into "idiot mode."

[This message has been edited by Stone Mill (edited 15 October 2001).]